A customer orders fresh food with her mobile phone at a Homeplus Express store in Seoul on April 26. Courtesy of Homeplus

Homeplus is setting new sales records with its express delivery service that started in February 2021. Its marketing strategy to send online orders within one hour and offer items at comparatively lower prices than those of its rivals have effectively appealed to consumers, the company said Tuesday.

Homeplus customers can receive their groceries within 60 minutes on average on purchases made before 10 p.m. The delivery time may change depending on traffic or weather conditions, but most customers have been highly satisfied with the service that the retailer has brought to 33 cities across the country.

This helped the sales growth of Homeplus' express delivery service in the first quarter of this year skyrocket by 980 percent, year-on-year. In March alone, its sale rose by 770 percent compared to that of March 2021.

The main customers of the express delivery service are women, who comprise 85 percent of the total. Most of them are in their 30s and 40s.

The most popular items sent by the express delivery service are fresh foods such as vegetables, meat, dairy products and eggs. Customers also purchase a lot of processed foods and snacks.

Homeplus said the synergy between its offline stores and online market played a key role in delivering customers' purchases the fastest. It uses its supermarkets as fulfilment centers where its employees do the shopping for customers and send the items by delivery drivers.

"Homeplus Express' one-hour delivery service recorded explosive sales growth and became a new paradigm for the online grocery shopping industry. We will continue to strengthen our logistics centers and increase our online daily orders up to 160,000 by 2024," a Homeplus official said.